When We Came To Rome, Paul Was Allowed To Live Alone. But A Soldier Stayed With Him To Guard Him.

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Numbers 8; Numbers 9; Acts 28 

When We Came To Rome,

Paul Was Allowed To Live Alone.

But A Soldier Stayed With Him To Guard Him. 

Scripture

Acts 28 

¹⁶ When we came to Rome, Paul was allowed to live alone. But a soldier stayed with him to guard him.

Observation

I believe that there is an excellent chance that we will meet that soldier one day in Heaven! What do you think?

The Apostle Paul in fact spent a large amount of his ministry reaching those in prisons and jails because that is where he was continually being placed. Do you remember what happened in Acts 16? Paul and Silas were severely beaten with rods and then thrown into the darkest most secure part of the jail and at midnight they began to sing and pray! God heard their prayers and sent an earthquake to throw off their chains and throw open the doors of the jail. All of this happened so a jailor and his family could come to faith in Christ.

One of the times when he was in prison he wrote to the church in Ephesus and said:

¹⁹ Also pray for me—that when I speak, God will give me words so that I can tell the secret truth about the Good News without fear. ²⁰ I have the work of speaking for that Good News, and that is what I am doing now, here in prison. Pray that when I tell people the Good News, I will speak without fear as I should. Ephesians 6:19-20

Once when he was in prison he wrote the letter of Philippians and he said:

¹² Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that all that has happened to me has helped to spread the Good News. ¹³ All the Roman guards and all the others here know that I am in prison for serving Christ. Philippians 1:12-13

He took advantage of the captive audience – the prison guards and other inmates to share Christ with them. 

He looked at his situation, his suffering, being whipped, stoned, beaten with rods, time in dark jail cells and his spending time in prisons even though he did nothing wrong. He looked at everyone one of these situations as an opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.  No pity parties.
God may allow bad things to happen to us and he may allow us to suffer to put us face to face with someone who needs Jesus and who needs our help.  

Application

In the middle of my circumstances I will look for people that God wants me to help. I will look for opportunities to be a witness.  I will not focus on my circumstances. How about you?

Prayer

Heavenly Father, give me the strength to follow through on what I just said that I would do. Help me to look above my circumstances and help me to look for the people that you are bringing into my life. 

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